A unit at UCC will be taking good ideas and turning them into businesses, reports Dick Ahlstrom
A new "hatchery" for campus companies has opened at University College Cork. The facility will help scientists there exploit the intellectual property that arises from their research activities.
The new BioInnovation Centre was built with a €750,000 grant from Enterprise Ireland and will support up to six spin-off companies at any given time, according to the director of UCC's BioTransfer Unit, Prof Gerald Fitzgerald.
"The BioTransfer Unit is the vehicle in UCC for technology transfer, innovation, and the identification, capture and exploitation of intellectual property in the biosciences area," he explains.
He adds that "the BioTransfer Unit is an evolution from the old National Food Biotechnology Centre", which for years has supported top-quality research in the food and biotech sectors.
But while the unit is an office-based activity, the new BioInnovation Centre - which sits within the remit of the BioTransfer Unit - opens up a wider front. It offers full laboratory, office and administrative supports to help fledgling companies, says Fitzgerald. "It is all bio, biomedical, biopharma and biotechnology in general. The BioInnovation Centre is a wet-lab incubator facility for spinout companies," he explains.
While the unit helps scientists recognise opportunities for the exploitation of intellectual property, the centre will actually provide the resources needed to help start-up campus companies come to life.
Fitzgerald envisages a maximum three-year stay for companies taken into the centre. This should give time enough for the promoters to confirm whether a spinout can stand on its own feet and trade off-campus.
These are no ordinary companies, however. In the main, the entire staff will be scientists and researchers, including graduates, post-docs and academics working on innovative new ideas.
They will have access to "fully equipped, state-of-the-art wet-lab facilities", according to Fitzgerald, with office and meeting room space and administrative support. They will also benefit from remaining close to ongoing bio-research teams in the labs that surround the BioInnovation Centre site on campus.
This should allow continued interaction with scientific peers, says Fitzgerald. "They will be generating wealth here and the quality of the employment will be very, very good."
The existing BioTransfer Unit will be able to help with other services, including the development of business plans, but really it will come down to the quality of the research and the development of innovative ideas in the spinouts that arrive in the Centre.
Three companies are already installed, including Alimentary Health, Luxel and Glantreo.
"All of them are very research-driven," says Fitzgerald
The new centre was opened last Friday by the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Micheál Martin.